TOWARDS A PRODUCER SYSTEM IN CONSTRUCTION ?

If the developments recently identified in German construction were to be projected into the future, it would seem that it is undergoing change in one of its traditional basic features, and shifting from a client-orientated system with many actors involved towards a producer orientated system dominated by the contractors. But apart from the general precaution, not to identify a relative shift as absolute, it might be the case that there will be a greater balance instead of the former inequality, which was to the disadvantage of the producers. This possible new balance of advantages and disadvantages will generate inequalities again favouring the bigger contractors with respect to the other actors, whose number may even increase because of enforced subcontracting and outsourcing, leaving many of them in a worse position than before. In particular a sharper distinction between enterprises active in the market and those on the end of the decision line probably will be discerned. However, at a second glance there are certain mechanisms embedded in the existing system, which make a quick and fundamental change less probable. First the nature of the product as long-term good needing a huge amount of financement can be supposed to be stable. In particular where the product of construction is an investment, it can be expected that investors will remain the ones who keep the traditional client functions and where no space is given for a market-orientated organisation of production. This may be different in those fields where buildings are more similar to a consumer good, like in housing or in office building. But it is as well not very likely, that the particular German habit of regarding the house as a good that a family buys once for life will change very rapidly. So the one-off-production of houses designed by an Architekt for and in discussion with the members of the family will retain a fairly big market segment. The family house will probably keep its character as an investment, and so the family house segment of the construction market will also keep its social constitution. Secondly even if bigger contractors more frequently take over the functional role of the Architekt by stepping into the design phase as Generalübernehmer they still will have a need for the professional role of the Architekt and its particular professional qualification and competence to mediate the process between client and producer and between individual and societal interests towards construction. This will perhaps no longer be the Architekt as an independent professional, but as an employee of a big contractor - if for the sake of the construction of the built environment is an open question. Thirdly by giving up the uncomfortable position at the end of the decision line in favour of a more active role in the market and integrating the role of the client, the construction firm will also take over the client's typical risks. The contractor as Projektentwickler may be able to integrate turnover and profits, benefit from a higher rate of utilisation of its production facilities, and increase its range of control of the whole process. But as much as it may be able to reduce the risk of a pure producer no longer dependent upon the clients needs and demand power by taking over the clients function, it integrates also the typical seller-clients risks, whose decisions can be accepted or refused by the market. If it does, its professional organisation may change, new professional roles and new qualification needs may occur. But the growing development towards integrating more and more phases of the construction process into the frame of the construction firm is accompanied by a process of disintegration of the construction firm, because it subcontracts an increased number of tasks and not at least its own former in-house services. The social constitution of construction markets as a characteristic of local German construction markets might disappear, if contractors transform themselves into producers for an anonymous market. But the more the construction firm tries to share the risk included with other actors, especially the later users of the building in a very early stage of decision making, the more the need for a share of risky decisions will remain. And a commitment to share a risk in a field, where the output is by nature indeterminate, never can be a commercial relation only but always will also keep the form of social relation too.